I’m a regular member of the LightWave 3D forums (username Scazzino). When checking for new posts it often gets frustrating having to skip over new posts that are in forums I have no interest in, such as Tricaster and other products that I don’t have. I’ve often Googled how to search for new posts in vBulletin forums and looked for some setting somewhere where I could specify which LightWave 3D forums to search for new posts and which other forums to skip. There didn’t appear to be any such settings on the LightWave 3D forum though. I noticed that the LightWave 3D forum was built with vBulletin so I did a little research to see if there was a way to limit the new posts search to specific forums or to exclude certain forums. It turns out that there is a way to do both in vBulletin. You can use the include or exclude parameters in the search URL.
Looking at the current URL that is used for the New Posts link in the LightWave 3D forums reveals this:
http://forums.newtek.com/search.php?do=getnew&contenttype=vBForum_Post
We can add an include or exclude parameter with a list of forum IDs to to the URL. This will limit which forums should be searched for new posts. The ID number of a forum may be found by going to any individual forum and reading the ID number right after the question mark. In the following example of the LW – Community forum the ID is 18. This gives us a clue for how to search for new posts in specific forums.
http://forums.newtek.com/forumdisplay.php?18-LW-Community
How to Search for New Posts in Specific vBulletin Forums Using a Bookmarked URL
The following link shows how to search for new posts in the LightWave specific vBulletin forums. It includes all the NewTek and LightWave 3D forums and skips all the non-LightWave 3D forums. Simply right click on this LightWave 3D Limited New Posts Bookmark and select Bookmark This Link. Don’t click on the link and bookmark the search result page though because if you watch the URL field you’ll see it quickly changes from the search URL to the results URL. If you bookmark the results URL it will only save that specific search result and will not find new posts at a later date. You need to bookmark the full search URL itself.
Feel free to edit the include list by adding or deleting any forum IDs from the comma delimited list as desired.
Enjoy!
For more information from the vBulletin Forums:
How To Include / Exclude Forums From “New Posts”
DreamLight Constellation Network Render Controller
DreamLight® Constellation™ is our cross-platform network render controller that combined with DLI_SNUB-Launcher™ makes configuring, launching and controlling LightWave 3D ScreamerNet LWSN for standalone, batch, network and internet rendering, drag-and-drop-dead-easy™.
Created by Michael Scaramozzino - LightWave 3D Artist Profile
Author of Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short & Mastering LightWave ScreamerNet
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